Author's Note: To be honest... I'm literally making this up as I go along. I'm not even putting any thought to it. So if it seems confusing or the quality is bad... that's my fault XD I'm just experimenting with what would happen if I were to write this way, because I tend to spend waaay to much time perfecting every word to the point where I stop writing, lol. It's starting off a little slow, but hopefully my imagination won't be so boring, k?

II.

Amber Eyes

I looked to my left. Then to my right. Nothing. Good. I swiped my access card and unlocked the door to discovery: the pharmaceutical lab. Shutting the door tightly behind me, I tip-toed silently to my workstation where I brought out my equipment and chemicals. Before I began, I looked at the clock. We were to meet by the front gate by noon on the dot, but for now, it was eleven.

"I gotta work fast..." I mumbled to myself and took a quick, deep breath. "Ok, this combination didn't work as well yesterday..."

And soon, I was completely enveloped in my own world of science. But this was not just an experiment I was preparing for extra credit. This was my life. Before I knew it, I had a new batch of pills bottled and ready to go. I looked up at the clock again. "Shit!" I exclaimed. It was ten pass noon. I started cleaning up and putting my equipment away in haste, when all of the sudden, a sharp, piercing pain shot in the back of my head. "Ah!" I screamed in pain as I stumbled across my workstation and knocked over a glass flask. I heard it shatter to pieces on the floor, but paid no attention to it. I opened the bottle of pills I had just conjured a moment ago and swallowed three.

Almost immediately, I began to feel the pain ease a bit, but it didn't disappear as soon as the sudden knock at the door to the lab rattled to my ears. "Hitomi! Are you in there?" a voice called out from behind the door. My ears were sensitive enough to know exactly who it was that possessed such a strong, masculine voice. But how the hell did he know I was in here?

I quickly cleaned up whatever mess I had left and went over to the door. Calming myself down, I brushed the stray strands of hair from my face and opened the door. "What is it, Van?" I asked monotonously.

"You're late," he said simply.

I suddenly felt self-conscious under his eyes. He was always calm and composed, but confident in a severely intense way. His eyes could burn a hole through me if I let him stare at me long enough, making me look away before I felt myself catch on fire. "You mean for the bus? I was just on my way," I responded while shutting the door quickly behind me. I noticed Van stare into the room before I closed it, but started walking away to avoid any suspicious questions he might ask. "By the way, how did you know I was here?"

"Dryden sent me," I could hear his voice following behind me. "He assigned partners while we were boarding the bus, and since I'm stuck with you, he figured I should go and find you. Besides, where else would you be?"

I stopped mid-step. I heard him stop as well.

"What is it?" he asked impatiently. "Did you forget something? You better hurry up or the bus will leave without us."

I placed my palm on the wall next to me and leaned on it, completely ignoring the young man behind me. My other hand unconsciously worked its way up to the side of my head as though the pressure of my fingers would magically make the pain disappear. Damn, I thought to myself. The medicine's not working. I shook it off and pushed myself off the wall. "No, I didn't," I replied and walked off. When I didn't hear him follow, I turned to look at him. "Are you coming or not?"

Van stood there, barely showing any reaction as usual. Did he notice? I wondered. "Well, I guess you're the one we'll be leaving behind now," I said and made my way toward the school gate without looking back.

"Hitomi!" Dryden yelled out my name from the front of the bus. "You're late!"

"So I've noticed," I murmured under my breath and climbed into the bus. "I apologize for my tardiness, professor."

"Well, you're here now, so just find a seat and..." Dryden's voice trailed off when he spotted Van a couple strides behind me. "Ah, yes, so I believe Van's told you of the arrangement for partners?"

"I wasn't aware there would be such an arrangement in the first place, professor."

"Well, it's been planned, picked, and assigned, so get used to it," Dryden said with a wink and that same cheesy smile I'd long to wipe off his face.

I took one more look at Van and walked down the isle to an empty row of seats in the back of the bus when I realized that they were the only seats available. Lovely, I thought as I turned around once more and told Van, "I call window seat."

"As you wish," he shrugged.

Soon, we were seated and the bus took off onto our journey from Asturia to Fanelia.

I stared out the window. We passed by many lively towns filled with many people, all living their lives carelessly and joyfully. It was strange to sit there and really take in the scenes before me, for when I ran through these streets, my focus was on my training, not sightseeing. It was too surreal to even witness such freedom. What was it like to live so freely? Were these people truly smiling? Or did they have something to hide?

Over the years, I've found it much too aggravating to hide and realized that the best way to avoid such nuisance was to stay invisible. It was unfortunate that doing so brought upon a different, undesired form of attention.

"Yo, Van," I heard Allen 'whisper' to the boy next to me. "I heard you're stuck with the geek. How do you think Merle's gonna deal with that when she finds out?"

"She won't," Van replied.

I couldn't help but shift my vision towards the corner of my eye and stare at him. She won't? I repeated to myself. How could she not? The question soon evaporated from my mind like forgetting a dream when you wake up. It was the headache. My fingers worked their way up to my temples and rubbed in attempted alleviation, but to no avail.

To put it simply, I was sick. It wasn't the type of sickness normal human beings got. It wasn't cancerous or a tumor, nor was it a disease or a virus. It just simply was. I'd had it all of my life, or more precisely, since my life was taken from me. When I was younger, I had chronic mild headaches, but the older I became, the worse it became as well. That was when they began to treat me with shots to prevent me from having severe episodes of seizures. Once, I tried to run away when an episode hit me and I fell into a coma. When I woke up, they had tightened security, and I knew then that if I were to run away, I would have to learn how to find a cure myself. If not, I could fall into a coma again, or worse... I could turn. Into what, I still didn't know. But some days, when the pain worked its way into my body, I could feel something inside of me changing, something that wanted to burst out of my skin. I wished I had the courage and strength to find out, but I was much too afraid of what I'd become. For now, I still hadn't perfected the formula to match the effect the shots had on my sickness, and I was still far from finding the cure, but for my sake, and for the others... I must.

I found myself reaching into my backpack and felt around for my bottle of pills. Opening it, I popped another pair into my mouth and leaned back covering my eyes with the back of my hand irritated. Why isn't it working? I asked myself.

"That's dangerous."

I peeled one eye open and peaked through my fingers. "Excuse me?"

"Overdosing," Van said. "You took two barely an hour ago."

I sighed. "It's my business."

"Here," I heard a familiar rattle of pills tumbling over each other. "If it doesn't go away, take these."

I put my hand down and looked at the bottle he held in front of me without making eye contact. "What is this?" I asked.

"Merle gets bad headaches during that time of the month," Van answered simply. I almost choked on the pill I had long swallowed. Did this guy really just talked to me about his girlfriend's period? "She always forgets her meds, so I had them packed. I forgot to take them out when I found out she couldn't go. So, you can have them."

I took a long glance at Van wondering if he was lying. For a moment, I thought it could've been a prank, but no one could have possibly known that I would have headaches this bad. "Mine works just fine. You can save those for your girlfriend." I shifted myself to face the window and closed my eyes to sleep, knowing very well I wouldn't be able to do such a thing.

"Whatever," I heard him say and put the pills back into his pocket.

I pretended to wake up when I heard the bus come to a screeching halt. Peering out the window, I noticed we had finally arrived Fanelia. It was breathtaking. We had parked in front of the Pier by the Oceanside, where the ocean was as blue as the cloudless sky and the sun reflected brilliantly in the water's surface. For a moment, I gazed at the seagulls hovering above and envied their ability to fly. I wished I had wings and could let myself go. To just be and exist without pretense. That was certainly a dream.

Readjusting myself in my seat, I looked over and noticed Van was still seated, but tense. His brows were furrowed and his hands were gripping the bus's cheap, fake leather seats until they turned white. He was sweating. "Van?" I bent my head down to get a better look at his face. Then, I gasped. His eyes were a blazing red. Since when were Van's eyes red? "Van?" I called out more firmly and hesitantly gripped his arm and shook him. "What's wrong with you?"

Suddenly, he turned his face, and before I could react, his eyes were inches from mine, and they were a deep hazel brown as they had been before. What...? Why...? I began to ask myself.

"You're too close, Hitomi," Van said.

My mouth gaped open for a moment before I came right back to reality. "You're the one who's too close, jerk!" I threw back at him and shoved him away. Getting up, I walked down the isle of the bus that had emptied without me noticing. What was wrong with Van? Why was he acting so strangely all of the sudden? And why were his eyes red? My eyes were sharp, and without a doubt, I could see that his were red. Only for a moment, but I was sure that they were.

My thoughts on the subject matter were distracted when I got off the bus and realized that my headache had somehow disappeared almost instantaneously. But it didn't make me feel the way the pills made me feel after I took them. Wherever it was that my headache had disappeared off to didn't matter, for at that very moment, it was the best I'd felt in years.